Damn, I Wish That Were True…

I managed to go to bed at an almost reasonable hour last night, after a few nights of 1:30-2 AM bedtimes (which really doesn’t work when you have to be up at 6:30)…but then spent the next hour NOT sleeping, but crying instead. I tried meditative breathing…it must have eventually worked (or pure exhaustion did…who knows), but I don’t even really know what set me off…some sense of futility. All’s not right with the world. No real sense of purpose to the days. That plodding feeling. Get through this day? Then there’s another. And another. And another. And they are all largely the same. Getting through. Getting by. Making stuff, but none of it feels that good to make…I can’t iron fabrics for 18 hours a day. And the ironing never made me feel GOOD…it was at the end of the ironing, when you would see what you achieved and THAT would feel good. That only happens once a quilt. It’s not enough.

I don’t know how to BE…be happy with what I have and not want more. I want more but I don’t see it ever happening. I don’t even know what I want more of. I don’t hold out much hope for more. This might be it. It seems a very empty life. There are too many Have-To’s and not enough Want-To’s…mostly because I don’t have many wants any more. And then my brain kicks in and tells me I really should be cleaning house. Fuck you, Brain. If I wanted to clean house, I would. When I am already unhappy, why make me do something that makes me more unhappy?

I say that, but there were two floors today that needed cleaning, so I cleaned them. That’s how my cleaning works. It’s not obsessive. It happens in small spurts…out of necessity.

Today. Back to school. I’m thinking I need to make a voodoo doll. I got to a point with this one school issue where if I didn’t meditate, I would have to kill small furry things (not really, but that’s how it feels). The anger, the work stress, the unhappy…I just needed to focus and get it out of my system, so I used the meditation for that, and again, it asked the one question that upset me so much yesterday, and today I tried to change the answer…my brain tossed in another answer, a perfectly reasonable answer…honestly a BETTER answer, because yesterday’s answer was just plain stupid. And yeah. Crying again, because my brain and I don’t agree.

Who am I if I am not my brain?

Healing is such a fucking slow process. I can’t hurry it. I just have to go with it, move what I can, change what I can, do the things that make the day more bearable.

So I ironed…

I did not make the voodoo doll (or five)…yet. Give me time. Those are heart pieces and arteries. I managed to do those and some fire and a spider and web and a uterus and two tattoos and three thunderbolts…I stopped right before the lungs because I realized that even though I was not in the least bit tired (strange that), it was getting late. That was the problem last night…I went to bed and I wasn’t tired yet. I mean, I was sort of tired, but not tired enough to just fall asleep and not have to work at it. So my brain got itself tied in knots and took me underwater into the murk of melancholia. Fucking stupid brain.

I need more exercise I think. Traveling messed with my exercise plan.

So the stuff in color is what I got done…it’s not much, actually…

An eyeball.

It’s kind of pitiful. Oh well. I’m at 12 hours now…at least one more to go, maybe more.

Part of the evening got tied up with work prep and cooking and picking the girlchild up from soccer…

Pretty skies, every year. I stopped to appreciate the sky. Tomorrow, hopefully I will appreciate the sky from home, because girlchild is supposed to finally get her license (I will believe it when I see it). She’s been in a mood lately…stress from soccer and life and everything…so she snaps at me for just about anything, and I try not to react…because when I react now, it’s usually with tears, and that upsets her. Then again, she needs to learn not to always snap. She needs to see that her mood causes other people pain. Or maybe I am just super sensitive. I am.

One part of the meditation question that makes me cry is the reminder that her brother will be gone in less than a year to college, and she follows the year after. And then there is just me. And this little psycho…

Yup. There she is, on the ironing board. Pulled her off another 4 times tonight.

Then she landed on my lap (three times tonight, once during meditation, claws kneading my thighs the entire time, try concentrating with that going on…I have a mind of steel, really).

And finally she tried the back end approach to the ironing board while I was working…she eventually ended up on the back of the chair with front legs on the purple fabric until I jiggled the board a few too many times and she gave up.

Mr. Meditation wants me to appreciate things, be grateful. I’m grateful to my ex for putting up my Xmas lights, even though we have been divorced for a million years now. He knows it scares the crap out of me, so he just does it. Thanks to my coworker who sent me a tiny, live Christmas tree for my classroom…it even has sparkles. Thanks to the kids who remembered their homework from before break and brought it today…and to those who didn’t and still showed up to detention to serve their time. I appreciated the sky this evening. Thanks to climate change and pollution for that. Oops. I didn’t mean that to be negative…but sometimes the ugly is indeed beautiful. Thanks to the kids for continuing to watch stupid TV series with their mom every night they’re here, connecting with me on some lame level that centers me at night and makes it easier to get through the rest of the day. Thanks to meditation for helping me be calmer about the stupid shit that swirls around me both externally and internally. Thanks to the two girls I had as students a million years ago who still remember my name, even though I’ve forgotten theirs (sigh).

And thanks to the part of my brain that pushes past all the sad and yuck and depression and makes up drawings and colors them in and finds the fabrics. I know it was some sort of genetic mutation that caused that part of my brain to exist…most don’t have that talent…and it was sheer stubbornness and willpower that made it as strong as it is today…and that, people, was all me. That’s mine. May tonight be full of sleep and empty of tears…for enough tears have fallen for today…hell, for this year. I don’t have any left to give.

Damn, I wish that were true.

Ironing the Crone

I originally named this post “I Just Want to Sit on Your Ironing Board, Bitch: Stories of a Petulant Cat,” but it seemed like a really long title and I didn’t have a photo that went with it. Just know that a certain cranky old-lady kitty had to be forcefully (claws in the cover) removed from the ironing board about 7 times today. She’s a stubborn bitch. I don’t like cat hair on my ironing board…plus she tends to knock fabrics down onto the floor…

She doesn’t like my telling her what to do.

When I’m not actually ironing, I move the board out of the center of the room…but she still jumps from the back of the office chair to the board (which often ends in the board hitting the floor, because it’s not very stable). You can see all the fabrics I’ve used so far piled up on the right side, some more in the middle. I leave the drawing up where I can see it, so I know what I’m ironing. I’ve had to draw about 10 pieces that I apparently missed before. Whoops…some were double numbers, but some I just plain old missed completely. They weren’t even numbered.

So I have 11 hours into the ironing at this point. I managed three hours today…mostly I got the flesh part of the Crone done…

I used almost all of the lightest flesh color…there is very little left of it…

just little tiny bits in between the other pieces. I still have about 40 or 50 pieces in the Crone that I haven’t done…the heart, lungs, bits and pieces that aren’t flesh or hair, because I finished all of those. So I’m through piece 1122, but I haven’t done all of them. You can see some of them below…

And now I have a bunch more to cut out…which is what I’ll probably be doing a lot of this month.

I managed to finally get my head out of the emotional mud today, at least once I picked the kids up. The morning was a mess, but when I started ironing, I was able to distract the mopey part of my brain with X-Files and a complicated part of the drawing…it really does require a bunch of concentration to try to figure out what color each piece is supposed to be. Sometimes I write notes on the pattern, like what number in the color range a piece is (1-6 on this one), in case I forget. I like to iron an entire body in one go, so I don’t forget where I was…so I have to figure good places to stop and start. So it took three hours today JUST to pick out and iron all the Crone flesh pieces…she’s about 400 pieces, so that’s reasonable. I’ll get the lungs, heart, etc. done tomorrow hopefully…it’s almost done. I have to do an owl and a cat (like you do) and some thorny bits…maybe another 2 hours? Hard to say.

Unfortunately, I also have to go back to school tomorrow. I’m mostly caught up on grading, but the next three weeks will be challenging. I’m going to try to be really efficient so I don’t have a ton of stuff to deal with over break…knock on wood. We’ll see how that goes. I always make plans and get screwed up by real life.

Meditation has moved into a new series, focusing on the mind (like they don’t ALL focus on the mind?)…

Mr. Meditation changed his clothes for this series…there isn’t a video every day…it’s usually every 5th day before the actual meditation. But he wore the same gray sweater for the last 40 days, which was the Discovery Series, and now we have a blue shirt for the Mind Series (another 40 days). I thought maybe you’d like to have a picture to go with my descriptions of what he tells me. No, his name isn’t really Mr. Meditation…I don’t remember what it is. It doesn’t really matter. Mostly I just listen to myself breathe and sometimes he tries to talk me through some process of reflection or being in the moment with my feelings or letting my brain go do what it wants (usually a mistake at this stage of my life).

I was feeling actually fairly settled when I started meditation tonight. I had spent those three hours ironing, although I made dinner and hung out with the kids in the middle of it…I even drew a little. So I’d done everything I could to help my brain settle a bit, but then he starts talking about training the mind to appreciate and reflect (I do OK with that…the reflection at least. I’m working on the appreciation)…and he asked one simple question and I started crying. Not just a little trickle of tiny tears, but a full-on waterfall. Damn brain. I know why. And it’s interesting, because we’re back to the thinking vs the feeling, and I am very good at allowing my brain to have the feelings and work through them. Sometimes my thinking brain gets angry about WHY I’m feeling, why I haven’t been able to get OVER it, and why I can’t just ignore stupid anniversaries that aren’t anniversaries any more, but I think I just have to accept that part right now. And it sounds like Mr. Meditation will be making me work on that for the next 40 days.

Two of my pieces will be at the SOKA University Art Gallery in Aliso Viejo (Southern Orange County, California) from January 13-May 8, 2014, as part of a California Fibers exhibit. I will unfortunately miss the opening; it’s on Thursday, January 23, I think (that’s a school night…not driving that far), but I will probably go up at some point to see the exhibit. It will be a good variety of fiber work from this group. It was juried by Kevin Wallace, director of the Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts in Ojai, California. That’s good news, getting work into shows. I will keep working on that.

Art Keeps Me from Flying Apart

So I had art goals for this week off from school…and as always, I didn’t get as much done as I wanted to…but that’s OK. I got a lot done, including grading for school (that’s what I do during all those Avengers’ movies…by the way, someone needs to explain how Captain America’s actor changed his body so much in that movie, and Thor? Love Thor.), which puts me ahead for the next few weeks…that will help. I don’t have a life, so I have more time to get art done, I guess. I have even less of a life over the next few weeks…the holidays suck for that, plus the high-school soccer season is starting, plus tournaments, plus crazy school crap, plus family stuff, plus ex is going to the UK. And that Xmas holiday. Sucks. Whatever. I’ll figure it out. Anyone wanna help me with the shopping? I’m flailing.

I did all the outline quilting on the Love (not love) quilt.

It only took about 3 hours and 15 minutes.

Look. It’s Kitten. I’m not sure why I didn’t get more quilting done. It was hard to just quilt, even with music playing, because it’s too much free time for my muddled little brain.

It gets upset. Angry. So then I had to go for a walk. A long walk. With a dog.

So I did that. And found a British phone booth. Strange.

It was a beautiful day. After about 30 minutes of walking hard and fast with the dog, I was feeling a little better. Less angry. Less sad. Not a good combination, those two emotions, especially while driving a fast-moving needle past your fingers.

Nice gate…

This was my quilting setup…big table with machine (under the quilt), boychild often on the couch or the chair. Headphones on. Both of us.

It really was too dark to quilt at night…on navy blue fabric with navy blue thread. A little crazy. I do this every year. Really. I do. Go back and look at November for the last I don’t know how many years. Routine.

I meant to cut pieces out for the Celebrating Silver quilt too, but that didn’t happen at all. It could have, but I was too tired. Funny, because tonight? I’m wide awake. And it’s bloody late. Stupid brain.

Last night, I managed to clean up the fabric a bit…the mess I’d left before we went to the mountains…

It was fabric chaos…because I had wanted to get halfway through, so through the 600s…but I didn’t. Too much bullshit on Tuesday morning. Couldn’t deal. Need mental space to be able to pick fabrics. My brain has to be able to access that mellow art space where it can color the picture in my head. I wasn’t there on Tuesday morning. Too freaked out. So it waited until last night.

Babygirl has apparently decided ironing boards full of fabric are nice to sit on. Nope. Give it up.

These were all the fabrics for the Maiden, which I got done last night…

She got to be blonde. Her sister, the Mother, was a redhead. The Crone? She’ll be silver. I already know what her hair will look like.

Then I looked at the clock. Super late. I’m not doing much better tonight. I managed to finish off a bunch of stuff, bird and skull and big stick…

Don’t remember what else…I’m only at piece 747, though…so 500 to go. Not ideal.

I thought about starting the Crone tonight, but I’d still be ironing now, and I have to try to get my body back on school sleep time. That means not staying up until 2 AM. So I stopped. I’m 8 hours into the fabric-choosing stage…probably got 4-5 hours left. So it’s unlikely that I’ll finish before I go back to school. That’s OK. I also wanted to finish the quilting, and I’ve got probably 2-3 hours left there as well. Because of the setup in my office/studio, it will be easier to finish the ironing before the quilting, so I’ll do that. If I can finish the quilting in the next week or so and get the binding on, that quilt will get done this month…which is good, because it needs to be photographed before the end of January. Then the other quilt, I’ll need to get it ironed down before Christmas so I can get it stitched down and quilted over Winter Break and photographed before February 1. I’d like to start another one in that time period too, so that’s on my mind. Not sure if I’ll do a smaller one (or two) first, or if I’ll do the next one on my list. We’ll see. I don’t have to decide right now. I just need a loose plan…goals to get through for December. I’ve got those. Make lots of art to distract my stupid brain. Check.

Remember how we needed white shirts for the family photo? I found this one for the boychild…

You can buy it here. He is also planning to dye his hair and do a mohawk (he has a lot of hair, so this could be really impressive). Grandma will love it. Really. (I’m not really planning on doing this. I just dream about this type of rebellion.)

I really want to be a street artist when I grow up. Street artists have this ability to paint and realize it will be gone…sometimes in days…

Amazing how they even paint over the stuff they just painted. I wanna be that free with my art. Maybe that’s my goal in the next year. Plus I want to use spray paint and do stuff that’s really big and looks awesome in timelapse photography. Plus I want to be on a couch and spray paint the ground. I have really simple needs.

And I need this pregnancy app for when I teach human reproduction…

Unfortunately, it’s not free. The useful stuff rarely is…because education has so much spare cash lying around? Seriously…my students would really benefit from this.

My mood today? I got through. I did stuff. I ran errands. I went to the gym. I finished a book, the second in a series…Crossed by Allie Condie.

It was pretty good. More YA dystopia where we try to eradicate anomalies (and disease) from society and realize that would fail because humans have free will and all. Plus love. You know. The ending was a little iffy, but there’s a third book in the series, so they had to set up for that. I would have done it differently, but I haven’t managed to write my breakout novel yet, so I can’t really complain.

Life. I get through it. Art keeps me from flying apart.

Distractions

Have you noticed that I haven’t been posting about emotions and grief and all that crap? I preloaded two benign posts (I put all the pictures in before we left Tuesday) so I could write two posts up in the mountains without having to think too hard. I figured I would have issues up there, and I did. The emotional stuff…it’s heavier now with the holidays. I was so relieved, even happy last year at this time about an issue that I thought was finally solved, that I could finally feel comfortable about the holidays and how we dealt with them, and I guess this year is proof that I knew nothing. That nothing is permanent or works out…and yes, I know that’s negative thinking, but the holidays sort of bring that out, you know? You have expectations, and this year, I had none…and I got that. Nothing. I got nothing that I really wanted, because who the hell knows what I want? I’m just moving through the days, doing the stuff people expect me to do, but not happy about any of it. Living in the moment? Really just trying not to think at all. That’s one issue I have with this concept of living in the moment…if you don’t look forward at all, you can’t change what’s happening. If you don’t look back, you can’t change where you are. In the actual moment, I don’t do anything but live THAT moment. And that doesn’t change anything for me. I need change. I need reflection.

We go to Lake Arrowhead every year for Thanksgiving. This year was no different.

We left Tuesday. The plus is that the girlchild wanted to drive and she’s fairly competent, so I sewed birds until we hit the mountain…

Calli slept in the back seat with the boychild…

She’s a very good car dog…

As long as you don’t mind her sleeping on you. She did have an extended back seat…we put the ice chest behind the seat and covered it with towels so she COULD sleep that way, but it’s more fun to be ON someone.

Traffic wasn’t bad. The weather was nice.

And I cried on and off. Music set me off. Plus the holiday itself. And stupid memories. Hard to shut those off. Just stitching, my brain has too much time to wander off into sentimental crap that won’t help it. It does it anyway.

I don’t feel good enough. I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t the right thing. I know that’s not about me, but it doesn’t make it hurt less or feel better. It really just feels like shit. I wasn’t worth working for…and that’s happened twice now. Please don’t say “you’re better off…” because that just ignores the pain I’m in right now. It may be true…I certainly got there in my head post-divorce and still believe it, but it doesn’t make any of it feel any better while you’re living it. All those things we say and write…they are so meaningless, and sometimes downright cruel. Just say “I’m sorry.” That’s all you have to say. You can’t fix it, so don’t even try. There really isn’t anything you can say that will make it better. You can show me some lame comic off of Reddit or a stupid Vine video of BatDad…that might help…once.

On Tuesday night, the kids and I went to see Catching Fire…

It was good, although I almost ended up in the boychild’s lap during the baboon scene. He is very tolerant. I wrote this down during the movie, a quote from President Snow’s daughter: “Some day I want to love someone that much.” Snow answers, “And so you shall.” Even the movies conspire against me. I had a conversation with the boychild…something along the lines of, “you’ve watched your mom cry for 5+ months now…keep that in mind as you are dealing with women or anyone else in the future…don’t run away…make sure you communicate and be responsible for your actions…don’t you dare do something like this to someone else. It’s not OK.” He says he knows. In the moment? Who knows what he will do or think or feel. He is very kind to me, though. Then again, I’m mom.

This was Tuesday night’s sky. It helped, briefly. Nature helps. Beauty helps. Briefly.

I felt bad about writing about depression and grief on Thanksgiving, so I just didn’t write. I mean, I wrote here, but I didn’t post any of it. I was there with my family and friends and I should have been thankful for food and time off and people who love me, but I’m not. I’m in that mind space where I’m just surviving…I’m trying to tell that whiny voice in my head to shut up. I’m not reading blogs, because I can’t handle other peoples’ happy or thankful at the moment. I’m staying off Facebook…same deal. I have nothing good to say…all I can say is wow…this still sucks. Thus is depression, and it has its claws in me. I will get away, but not today. Today I will do what I need to do to get through, and I will try not to think about last year, because how can you now be thankful when you have less and what you have hurts all the time? And that is depression. It’s not something where I can just get up and make a decision to be OK. I have to work through it.

My dad gave me an article about the difference between being lonely and alone: I still feel lonely in a room surrounded by others. I’m not ready to go out and party. I’m still hurting and sad. It’s a sign of how deeply I was committed to what I had, how deeply I was hurt. Respect it. Let me find my own way, in my own time. I’m alone because that’s all I can handle. I’m lonely because I haven’t figured out how to fix that yet.

We came home today; I drove down the mountain. We had Pandora playing most of the trip off the girlchild’s phone, and tried a variety of ways to rig the speakers…this was NOT the best choice…

Boychild finally typed up his essays for the University of California college app (due tomorrow)…in the back seat of the car…

Calli had her head on the keyboard for part of it. He has now officially applied to two colleges…only eight to go (seriously). I’m feeling a little less stressed, or a little more stressed, depending on what part of his going to college I think about…paying for it or sending him off or having finally started the process or I don’t know. His actually getting in? Scary stuff. Paying for all of it while trying to budget for Christmas is a whole ‘nother issue.

We switched drivers at the bottom of the mountain (I get carsick easily, plus didn’t want to white-knuckle the trip down in the rain)…

Calli was awake for that (briefly).

Then I went back to sewing, in the rain this time…this is where the speakers ended up…

More crying on the way home. Girlchild notices…doesn’t say a word. I cried on the way up because she had been yelling at me, typical teenaged stuff, but I just couldn’t handle it. On the way back, I don’t even know what set me off…songs…the trip…my brain. She said sorry on the way up. Don’t cry. Please don’t cry.

I didn’t manage meditation up there at all…too tired by the end of the day. I think we saw three Avengers movies in the last 5 days, plus lots of people and food (more about that later). I really should have meditated, but would have just fallen asleep in the middle of it. I kept having dreams and nightmares…mostly dreams that turned into nightmares…makes sleep a bad place to be. The house was on fire, I kept going back for stuff, someone was helping me. Kids were little; I grabbed electronics and chargers. I couldn’t get to my sketchbooks, clothing, or meds. Calli was the last thing I grabbed. The house gets sprayed by something, but it’s not helicopters, it’s people flying through the air with their arms outstretched, spitting water from their mouths. It’s not enough. I woke up terrified. That was the nightmare. I couldn’t remember the dream by the time I had typed that out.

I meditated tonight, a relief really (remember that), but with a cat on my lap, squawking at me and kneading my thighs with her claws, while the dog cried at me with her ball, wanting me to throw it, headbutting me until I petted her. While breathing. While counting my breaths. While noting my emotions. While crying. Meditation with interruptions is still better than no meditation at all.

Mr. Meditation says I need to allow my emotions the space they need to exist. I think I do that. I don’t run away from them. They are part of human existence. We can’t control when they come and go. We can’t get away from them or control them. There needs to be a willingness to listen within. Listen to my own emotions and watch them and exist with them. If more people did that, I think there would be a lot less pain in the world. Fear of one’s own emotions seems to cause an awful lot of stupid behavior.

Despite all the bad mental stuff over the last three or four days, I found myself today being grateful for the art. I’ll write tomorrow about what I’ve gotten done, but better than that…I currently have 9 pieces out for shows, either in shows right now or traveling to a show that will open soon. I have 4 pieces guaranteed for shows in the next few months, another one that I will finish in the next few months that has a guaranteed traveling exhibition starting next winter, and another one I haven’t even started that will be in a show next January. There is no shortage of work in my head that wants to be made…one was crying out to be drawn during meditation today and I ignored it…at least for now. The art brain is there, it’s active, it’s holding my head out of the water. The art brain doesn’t mind being alone…it’s the non-art brain that gets lonely. The two don’t exist apart from each other, unfortunately though, so I have to help one to help the other…at the moment, the art brain is ruling the roost…it hears the other part, but it knows that the art will get me through…so it keeps making and dragging that part of the brain along with it. They don’t often get along, the two pieces of my brain, but they do know to take care of each other…give art brain ample time to create, but let the rest of my brain have a life outside of art, and they will both be happy. Right now I will settle for one part being hard at work and somewhat distracted by that. For now.

People and Portraits Exhibit

I went to the Houston IQF show mostly because I had two pieces in the SAQA People & Portraits exhibit, which is based on Martha Sielman’s book Art Quilt Portfolio: People & Portraits. We got official pictures of the exhibit, which travels next to the Texas Quilt Museum in La Grange, Texas, from January 9-March 30. Here was the entry to the exhibit at IQF.

Turning directly to the left, the first artist is Margot Lovinger, who works in layers of sheers and tulle. Maria Elkins is next, with her portraits combined with traditional quilt patterns. The cover shot from the book is in the exhibit, but her more recent piece, Surrender, has a heartbreaking story that goes with it here.

Next comes Margene Gloria May, whose portraits are made from a variety of different fabrics, including a wrinkled shirt and tie in the piece on the right.

Joan Sowada‘s work is next, with overlapping views of skateboarders and a closeup of a loving couple.

Lori Lupe Pelish‘s work has fascinated me for years, with the busy fabrics she uses to make up her portraits. There are two pieces here: the mother and child on the left, and then a quadtych (is that a word?) of 4 pieces. Her work requires closeup viewing and then a step away for the big picture.

Pat Kumicich‘s work is in your face. These aren’t pretty portraits…you need to take a closeup look.

Cheryl Dineen Ferrin does portraits of people she meets or knows, especially in motorcycle groups.

Pam RuBert‘s pieces always have some sense of humor or a pun that draws you in. Jenny Bowker‘s work has recently focused on people she met in a variety of countries, including Egypt.

Sherry Davis Kleinman uses a variety of pencils and paints to create her portraits on fabric.

Sonia Bardella uses paints and patterned fabric to make her portraits.

Lora Rocke uses thread painting to make her portraits, whereas Carol Goddu uses vintage and fancy fabrics to dress her dancers.

Bodil Gardner‘s quilts are always happy, and often use recycled fabrics. Ulva Ugerup‘s quilts are small, but have lots of impact and hand embroidery.

Yoshiko Kurihara’s quilts seem to be about parties, with all the characters very stylized and angular, yet also faceless.

Next to Kurihara were Mary Pal‘s cheesecloth portraits of the homeless.

Around the corner were Viola Burley Leak‘s graphic portraits.

I shared a corner with Leni Levinson Wiener‘s pieces.

Last of all, my two: Fully Medicated on the left and I Was Not Wearing a Life Jacket on the right.

What I loved about this exhibit (besides being in it) was the variety of work within the theme of people and portraits. There were many styles represented, but all the pieces were technically well done and each artist had a singular voice, which is apparent in the exhibit. We were allowed to choose the two pieces in the exhibit from those chosen for the book, although a few of the pieces in the show are not in the book, Elkin’s piece Surrender being one of those. Owning the book is one thing: seeing these pieces in person is an entirely different experience. If you missed IQF and can’t make it to La Grange, Texas, they will be in Birmingham, England in August 2014 and will be traveling after that. I’ll let you know future venues as they are added…definitely worth seeing.

I should add that all photos were taken by Gregory Case; the exhibition information can also be seen here on the SAQA website, this being a SAQA-sponsored exhibit.

Cuyamaca Peak

Sunday was supposed to be a 6 1/2-mile hike…until it mutated into a 10-mile experience…it was totally worth the muscles that are still sore two days later. We started across the street from last week’s hike. The easy way up to Cuyamaca Peak is up the fire road…but that’s always the boring way…so we started out through Azalea Glen on a trail that was apparently probably closed (whoops). Signage was confusing.

For some reason, I don’t have many pictures from the first part of the hike…probably had something to do with the 1700-foot-plus elevation gain. Here’s near the peak…small people, awesome view…

And a closeup on the people…yes some were in shorts.

They didn’t stick around for the extended dance mix at the end (goosebumps).

You can just see the radio towers at the very top.

This is at the very top…

We took a few detours on the way down for the sake of “pretty” (the extended dance mix) and saw these large pine cones…there were at least 3 varieties of pine cone…

This is still fire territory, but it’s great to see the dead burned trees with all new growth surrounding them…

In fact, a lot of this trail, ironically called Burnt Pine, was seriously overgrown. We had to climb over some trees that had fallen while fighting thorny bushes.

All that green is new trees.

This is the view towards Cuyamaca Lake, coming down the fire road.

Then we detoured on another road past the creek, where we saw multiple deer…this guy kept an eye on us as his peeps ran through the meadow.

This is Stonewall Peak from the valley below, last week’s hike.

Poop. What else can I say?

These are morteros near Paso Picacho.

The sun is going down as we get near the end, illegal paths, all blocked. We end up just picking what we think is a trail that will get us back, ignoring the signs. Bad hiking etiquette, but we couldn’t find a pattern to the signs or a reason for their existence.

10 miles, 5 hours. The peak was at 6512′. Tired? Yeah. Good hike? Yeah. It’ll be a while until the next one unfortunately. Life conspires against me.

Muddling

I just want my mind to give up and let me have a rest from its constant noise. I get that for about 20 minutes in meditation…well, some days I do and some I don’t. I’m getting better at it…not silencing it, per se, but being able to step back from it. It’s the same thing that saves most teachers: the ability to block out all that excess noise and focus on one kid’s voice, eyes, face. Or the voice in our heads…telling us to keep it together, despite the chaos. It works that way now sometimes…I can step back from the sad and the grief. They’re still there, I still feel them in my chest, my gut, but I can stand back, arms crossed on my chest…and watch. It doesn’t make it hurt less. It doesn’t make me feel less sad. But it gives me some distance, I guess.

My life needs to adjust: the purpose needs to be to Live and not just to get through or survive…because that’s what it is now. I wake up in the morning and think about how I will survive the day. I don’t think about how to Live it, most days. When I can, I add a hike or artmaking. That’s closer to Live. I’m not happy about what the Live looks like, but that’s what it is. I can’t control what other people think or do…I can’t even control my own mind half the time. During meditation tonight, I hugged it, my mind. I just freakin’ hugged it from behind, because it wouldn’t turn and face me. Girlchild accused my radio station of playing sad songs all day, and I guess it was true, because I cried on the way to pick her up and on the way to and from quilt class. And to school. And to the doctor. The rest of the time, she was in the car with me. Distraction. My mind was in a bad place, wandering around in the cold and the dark. Someone should have put on some better music for it.

I started this in the morning. I typed: “Just electronically checked in at the doctors office. Cute perky little things ask if I want to try the kiosk. Yes. If if means I don’t have to talk to anyone and say have a good Thanksgiving to people I don’t know but recognize because I’m here all too often. That superficial social stuff. Becoming a hermit. Must be the holidays. Plus I’m a tech person? I guess.” Is the world becoming more antisocial with kiosks? Maybe. I do prefer the self-serve at Home Depot and the grocery store. I’m tired of making small talk. “How are you?” “I’m fine.” “No, I’m not. I’m having a really bad life at the moment. I’m not going to kill myself, which is what people keep asking, but I’m just not having any fun. Or even anything anywhere near fun. Why do you ask? Are you looking at my purchases differently now?” Yeah. So. Kiosk it is. Then no one needs to know that I bought artichoke hearts AND coriander seeds.

After doctor appointments, there was someone I would always call, because the appointments make me feel unsettled, shaky, unsure of my own body. I just needed to check in with someone who apparently cared about me. I can’t burden the kids with my health issues. There are so few health successes. Even today. Doc was all excited about the weight loss, but then wanted to know how. So I told her. She was…I don’t know how to describe how she was. She’s been my doctor for a million years…since the girlchild was born. She was worried about me. She asked if I was getting help, did I want more help, did I want more meds, did I want to hurt myself. She tried to tell me that single women were happier (is that true?). She even hugged me at the end, and that’s why I cried on the way home. I made it out the hallway and past the waiting room and the perky little things and the kiosks and through the parking lot and into the car. And there was no one I felt I could call. I’m sure that’s not true, that there were people I could have called, but my brain was all tied up in whom I would have called.

My numbers aren’t bad. Some are better, but I didn’t get rid of any meds…I got more. Fucking meds. Fucking body. It feels like a conspiracy. How are you supposed to reduce stress if bad shit keeps happening? I don’t know. Mr. Meditation will tell me, maybe.

So a rough day. Discussed holidays with the girlchild. She says to have no expectations. I say it’s not even expectations, because I don’t expect anything. It’s that I had something and now I don’t, and the holidays are a big slap in the face reminder of that. Plus no routine and too much thinking time and it just reminds me and I don’t want any more reminders. And it’s all about survival and not Live.

So I did a lot of fabric stuff today, despite a million hours of grocery shopping and errands and driving (or riding, because girlchild is driving me). I did the fabric stuff to try to counteract the brain muddling through its holiday crap. I wanted to get through ironing half the pieces down, but the errands took longer than I thought…

I did get through about piece 535, though…

So not bad. And I have the flesh run of 7 fabrics now, so it will be easier when I get to the other bodies…

Babygirl was not helping by sleeping on the flesh fabrics…

I’ve done the Mother and the bird above her head…tomorrow, I’ll start on the Maiden maybe…if I have time. I’ve got 5 hours and 40 minutes into the fabric choosing, with probably 7 plus hours to go. I also cut pieces out at our rescheduled quilt class…

Got about two hours into that. And then came home and ironed some more…

Probably worked later than I should have, but I’m wide awake and scared to go to bed when I’m this awake.

My brain really doesn’t need more opportunities to get all worked up at the moment. Someone needs to whack it over the head with an iron frying pan to gently persuade it to sleep. Seriously. It’s significantly late and I am wide-fucking-awake.

Just tell it to stop. My kids try to distract me with stories and videos and movies that we all watch together. Discussions of who is hotter, Thor from the Avengers or Gale from The Hunger Games (the boychild just scoffs at these conversations). Talk of what movies we’ll see later this week…there’s some guy named BatDad. There’s a geeky video of Miley Cyrus infiltrating Key Club. I would probably be OK without all that stuff, but I know they are trying to engage me in life, in Live instead of survive. So I go along with it. It’s OK in the moment. It’s the standing in line or waiting in the car moments where I start to muddle through the muck again.

I thought y’all should see my recipe card for the Nida family holiday Swiss green beans (no French-fried onions were sacrificed for this dish)…

It is well-used, and every year, my SIL calls to get the recipe again because she’s lost hers.

Thankful I can always find it. Thankful for kids who care. Thankful for a doctor who pays attention and remembers enough details of my life to ask the right questions. Thankful for the art…for as long as I can remember, it has been saving me. I hope it never leaves, because everything else probably will.

Phoenix Island Review

I recently finished Phoenix Island by John Dixon.

This book started very dramatically and held my attention for about the first half. It’s the story of a 16-year-old kid, Carl Freeman, sent to to a disciplinary camp on Phoenix Island in the middle of nowhere. It’s a military-type camp and there is the typical hazing and bullying that goes on in these stories. Then the story changes when the boy makes a discovery about what goes on after the first month. As he grapples with his sense of ethics and Dixon introduces a new leader and set of information about the purpose of the island, the story seems to lose a little of its power and storytelling strength, unfortunately. The book ends typically, and I had a hard time imagining where it would go from there (sequel setup?).

I enjoyed most of the book; it is YA, and holds together well for that audience. It is due to release January 7, 2014, which is also apparently when the CBS TV show based on it, Intelligence, will air. I am interested enough in the premise to watch the show. This was a NetGalley book.

Out of the Dirt

I managed the gym, finished a good book (in one day…no idea how many pages it had, because the Kindle app says things like Location 405 of 3606, and I don’t know what that means), graded one period’s worth of journals (I only had one period left, so that was OK), bought thread so I can quilt up in the mountains, hung out with a friend for an hour or so, and ironed fabrics. Not a bad day. I managed it. There were some bad moments, true, but that seems to always be the case. I weathered them. I cried, but it wasn’t as bad as some Saturdays have been. I do miss going out to dinner and the movies. I wish I could go out dancing, but that seems to be out of my cost range, plus requires more people skills than I have at the moment. Doing things with other people is not my strong point. I even meditated, but my brain was like a 5-year-old with ADHD, so I just let it wander and reeled it back in over and over again. I’m not sure it was particularly helpful tonight. Oh well. It can’t always work ideally. That’s the wonder of the damn brain. It’s fucking unpredictable. Or maybe it’s predictably random.

I have about 2 1/2 hours in on the fabric choosing for the Celebrating Silver quilt…

I’m about halfway into the 200s as well. I’m up and out of the dirt as of tonight. When I start up again (maybe tomorrow?), I will be in the flesh of one of the daughters…I think of the Maiden and the Mother as daughters of the Crone…not sure why. Because they’re smaller and younger? Who knows. I didn’t want to start dealing with flesh yet…too tired tonight for that. Flesh has to be a run that flows, and with a quilt like this, it might need 7 fabrics in the run. Or I might decide to do two different runs, two shades…with the daughters in a lighter, pinker shade, and the crone in a more muted, greyed shade. Who knows? I won’t know until I pick them, and I kind of feel like I need to have a fresh brain for that, and I don’t have that right now. I have late night tired brain.

All the 200s are laid out…

There’s a bird in there too. And a heart, I think. Maybe a fetus. All that before I even get to the daughter, whichever one it is. Can’t tell…maybe the Maiden. There’s only 1237 or so pieces in this thing. I’m going to be ironing for a while. It would be nice to get it done before we leave, but I don’t know if that’s possible.

My plan is to start cutting these out at my rescheduled quilt class Monday night and continue up in the mountains.

I’d like to have half of it ironed by Tuesday…more if possible. It sounds like a lot of time, but I have a hike and dinner tomorrow, then doctor, soccer, groceries for Tday, some other errands, and quilt class on Monday…and Tuesday morning is a mess. So I don’t know how far I will get. When I type all that out, the thought of getting 615 pieces ironed seems unrealistic…that’s another 400 pieces, probably another 4 hours. When I’m not tired. Ha! OK, I have a goal. I’ll do my best to meet it.

I did go through the older sketchbook and marked some of the drawings with post-its. I don’t know if I’ll get more serious about making some smaller quilts this week, but I’m trying to at least keep it in mind, since two of my smaller non-nude pieces will be in Poway starting next week, so there is a market for these. I think I’m afraid to NOT have multiple pieces in progress at the moment…I don’t want any down time. Down time leads to depressoid time, and I’m good at that without any encouragement from a nonbusy brain. Trying to keep the brain occupied is an important task.

After finishing the cross stitch I’ve been working on for my SIL for the last 3+ years, I was trying to decide what to do next and decided that the girlchild’s Xmas stocking should be next on the list…I mean, I started it before she was born and she is now 16. Seemed to make sense. So I pulled it out and stared at it for 20 minutes, trying to figure out what in hell I had stitched…

I really did think I had stitched more, but more importantly, this line of stitches didn’t appear to match anything on the pattern…until I realized I had stitched it in the wrong color. Wow. I was about 9 months pregnant with the girlchild and the boychild was about 18 months old when I started it. It’s surprising my brain didn’t just fall right out of my head. I ripped out all the stitching from over 16 years ago and will start again at my next stitching meeting. Fresh start. Funny stuff. I did tell her not to expect it until she was 21, based on how long the one for her aunt took me…it’s not that I’m a slow stitcher…I’m not. I just only work on it for about an hour and a half a month at the one meeting.

I’ve been staring at this card all day…it was sent by two good friends sending me encouragement a few months back…but I love the dog and birds. Bright colors and funky.

Much appreciated. They’re the ones who posted the article that talked about the meditation app I use, Headspace…so it’s their fault I’m calmer now. Damn them. No, not really. I did actually use it the other day with a student who was in a mood…and it worked. Welcome to the calmer Kathy…or something.

I started and finished this book today, Every Day by David Levithan.

I liked it. I thought it was well-written. I can’t remember why I read it, although it could have been as simple as seeing someone else’s review. A person (hard to tell if A is male or female) inhabits a different body every day, and one of those days, falls in love. It was nicely done. I would read another book by Levithan. Because I don’t have enough books to read? I remember the boychild worried once about what would happen when he ran out of books to read. I don’t think it’s happened yet. I have two more books on the library ebook system and another two on the Kindle app at the moment. I guess vacation is time to read.

I’m hiking tomorrow; far as I know, the hike is on…looking forward to this one…will be dispelling some head demons up there, I think. Hope. Trying to figure out if taking the sketchbook makes sense. I can’t draw and hike, but maybe I can draw in the car (mountain roads? Might be a mistake…don’t know).

Out of the dirt…into the snow.

Time Off

I didn’t post last night because I think I finally hit absolute exhaustion mode. Thursday was a bitchy day, nonstop bullshit left and right, too much to do. Counselor says I thrive on stress…but then by the end of talking to me, she had revised…she said that I had been living that way for so long that I didn’t know how to stop…that I didn’t like it, but I functioned well that way. True that. I try to reduce stress, but that’s hard to do when the world keeps throwing shit at you. The meditation is helping, but we’re going to work on the rest of it. Today feels like more of it, the stress…but I know if I can power through some of this, I can get it done and do the stuff I want to do and get more time for that.

Yesterday was two potlucks…my students were amused because I forgot to put the mashed potatoes in the microwave early enough in class (lunch is after 4th period…I was supposed to microwave them between 3rd and 4th and then put them in the slow cooker…duh), so I stomped (wearing Uggs, feet cold) into the prep room, slammed open fridge, microwave, and stomped back out…they knew they were being typical kids on the day before break, so they thought I was mad at them and was going into the prep room to get something to punish them with (wait, what? Because I do that? like what would I have in there…leftover sheep hearts? cow eyeballs to lob at them? Oh wait. I do have those things.). So that was funny.

Then we kamikazed north in that crazy East County thunderstorm last night to another potluck…it was totally dry and rainfree in North County, but flooding here. Weird stuff made for fun ride. By the time I got home and my body was trying to deal with two different potlucks of food that it wasn’t used to…I meditated…then I sat silent with my cup of tea and stared at the blackened TV, off. Too tired to do anything. But I remembered that I wanted to think about doing a few smaller pieces for shows that need them, and maybe some without nudity (same deal), so I pulled a couple old sketchbooks…

And started thumbing through them. Wow. That was a mistake. The last five years of drawings in these books is mostly at dinner and it’s really painful to look at them. I found a couple that might work for size, but not nudity. The top one isn’t even full. The bottom one is, though. I don’t know if I can open them back up though. Maybe next month.

I found another sketchbook this morning that was a little older…it might be more useful. But I really can’t do that right now…I was looking at that for December (which, yes, is only a week away) and maybe over break if I finish these two. And I already have two in line for after that. At least. Plus there’s another invitational thing to do by next November AND I want to do another big one for next summer. Because I have no life and I might as well fill it with artmaking and fuck the rest of it. It’s really my fault for documenting where I drew each one…I like the history of that process, but for future reference, sometimes history hurts. Counselor says I need to be OK with hurt at some point. I think trust also needs to come back, and neither are lurking behind the curtains waiting for me to call them out…they’ve fucking run for the hills, terrified that I’m going to kick their asses. I think I have a lot of time before I deal with either of those two things.

Or something.

There’s a hike planned for tomorrow to Cuyamaca Peak, but we know it snowed up there…ironically, the last time I went on this hike, it had just snowed too and it was freezing and there was no view. And my co-hiker was a fucking physical wimp, so it was a pain in the ass. Remind me of that in a year. We’ll see about the hike. I’m OK with going and OK with rescheduling…I have plenty to get done.

What’s really calling to me (is not the grading I have to do at school later today, once I get my butt to the gym and run errands) is this…

I want to just pick fabrics out for this quilt for the next 24 hours until it’s done. I can’t, of course, but that’s what I want.

It’s going to be an amazing quilt. I’m really happy with the drawing. I just hung it up Thursday night and I’ve been walking past, in and out of the office to do stuff for school, and every time I look at it, I get excited. That’s good. That’s healthy. Fuck the rest of it.

Calli agrees…

As long as I throw the toy.

I think my other goal this week is to get enough rest…I will be going to the doctor Monday to figure out all my test results (I’m sure she loves that I read and analyze them before I come in, but I want to be able to reduce some of my meds and so I need to know what to look for, although now it looks like I will have to ADD fucking meds for the anemia…bastard body…if you’ve seen my piece Fully Medicated, you know how I feel about being on stupid meds). Maybe some of that is related to my sleeping issues.

I must have REALLY been exhausted last night, because I did mostly sleep, although it was an interesting night, apparently…this is my sleep app from last night…

I don’t usually see peaks like that. Usually it’s more like this…

from the night before. The sleep of the dead. Lack of sleep. Yes, it’s also a work night vs a non-work night, so that helps. Anyway. I’m hoping for plenty of the good sleep and less of the awake time, and longer periods of it…to hopefully recharge for the next three weeks, which are a little chaotic, as always, but complicated by the ex being gone for the holidays this year and college applications being due and balancing my needs for art and a life that isn’t sad and depressing. I had issues with that yesterday…but was too tired to even deal with them. Drawings! There are drawings crowding my brain, but a lot of them involve warrior women taking over the world and burning shit down, so that will be fun to draw. Boychild offered to get me a spear and legal advice…such a good kid.